A Light in the Dark
by Prosper-the-XVIII
Summary: When something knocks you down, you can get back up. if not, there's always a hand to pull you to your feet. For M during her fallout from her husband, James Bond is that hand. Slightly 00M-shippy.
1. Chapter 1

**Okay, I got this idea whilst writing one of my other fics last night, and I decided to expand on it a little. It doesn't exactly tie in, but follows the notion of him not liking what MI6 do. I have this random obsession with M's somewhat nonexistent romantic life, so that's where this came from. This is maybe in between QoS and Skyfall. I happened to notice that in the 'He's in the Bahamas' phonecall scene of CR, M's husband is there and then he never appears from then onward. This includes three of my OCs and Ben Wishaw's Q - all of whom I am using for M's children - and I hope you enjoy! (might go a bit Bond/M shippy at the end)**

* * *

She stepped into her apartment, flicking on the lights. Shoes kicked off, bag thrown down and M stormed about halfway through her living room before for the first time in ages, the framed photo resting unnoticed on one of the bookshelves set into her wall caught her eye. She stopped, breathing out heavily, and picked it up, her hands cupped around the cool opaque glass of the frame and the sight taking her back to when the picture had been taken. She had to have been about thirty-eight in the photo due to the fact that in it she was a good six months pregnant with her fourth and final child, and in it she was lying flat on a Florida beach, seemingly oblivious to the fact that her husband Matthew was buried up to his waist in sand, their three daughters, Summer, Hope and June, looking to be responsible for this, sitting laughing with ice cream all round their faces. She smiled at the memory, and all the others of those treasured few weeks where the bodyguards kept their distance and they could just be a normal family - the best by far had been in Gibraltar when a monkey had stolen her son David's passport and then stood and eaten it, though getting back home had been a little awkward - but then remembered the complete and utter chaos that had been the night before.

She cringed at the memory of her own instincts and/or stupidity that had led to her husband of forty years walking out on her. It had started out as a family evening of celebration; M, Matthew and their children Summer, Hope, June and David, all of whom worked for MI6, but when two members of your family are trained assassins, one's the head of MI6, one can kill you five different ways with an iPhone, one's one of the only secretaries in the UK who has to be trained how to handle a gun and only one is just your bog-standard British citizen who had simply been roped into the whirlwind of crazy that was the Secret Service by marriage, nothing like that ever goes to plan.

When M had been promoted to a job that gave her ridiculous working hours and put a high price on her head to most mafias or terrorist organisations, her husband had kind of made up his own double-life too, which mainly involved all-night poker games and friends that she'd never met. She had found out that he'd cheated on her a few times, but as when she was an agent, she had done the exact same, her problem with this wasn't too enormous. However, the one thing that she couldn't get by was his obvious hatred towards MI6. That had sparked several arguments over the years, and it had caused the incident the previous night...

_It had started out as a family get-together type thing to celebrate a combination of David being assigned a job in MI6 as the new Quartermaster, Hope getting engaged and M's sixty-fifth birthday. That simple. But then someone had been stupid enough to bring up the subject of what was work for agents Hope and Summer, secretary June, David, or Q to give him his job title, and M - MI6. _

_"Look, would you leave what happens in MI6 in MI6 and just try and be...normal for one night?" Matthew had looked up at m, who had been half-listening to David and Summer and staring into the contents of her wineglass. _

_"And what's your definition of normal, exactly? It's what I do, Matthew, I don't see why you have such an enormous problem with it." She looked up, her tone perfectly calm, but a slight tic in her eye. He was crossing a line by complaining about what she did; he had done it before and he knew that she hated it._

_"My...Evelyn, I just want you to stop talking about it. You know I can't stand what you've turned our family into."_

_"And what might that be?' M's sounded irritated now, and you could clearly see it in her face too. She raised an eyebrow as he composed a response._

_"Murderers. You and your precious Secret Service have turned my entire family into bloody killers." _

_She took this as a huge slap in the face, standing up and glaring at him. _

_"Mum..." David yanked at her arm, urging her to sit down, knowing what was coming next. Across the table, Summer turned to June and muttered; "Fifty quid that he's the first to throw a glass at the wall." Of late, every time you tried to put M and Matthew in the same room, then said so much as the number six, you could almost guarantee that there would be abuse shouted, something thrown and generally smashed and a door slammed so hard that it threatened to come straight off the hinges, so fights like this one were by now a common occurrence. _

_M wasn't finished though. "That's where you're wrong. Only two are agents and Hope's never made a kill in her life. I've not done anything; they all work for me out of their own free will. And murder implies cold-blooded killing for no reason. MI6 only kills if necessary and even then it's only people who pose an immediate threat to our country and it's citizens."_

_"See, you even go so far as counting how many people you slaughter and think that it's a good thing when that number reaches the double digits! It's disgusting!" He was standing now too, the pair facing off in the middle of the room. "It's still ending lives, and therefore it's still murder."  
_

_"And it's not like you do anything for so much as this family, let alone country! And you know that it's not easy; you've seen my scars, you know what I've been through to get where I am. If you had such a bloody enormous problem with it, why did you marry me in the first place?" They had been walking as insults were fired, and by this point were in the living room, M with her back pressed up against the sofa and Matthew a few feet in front of her._

_"It was your choice to spend your life killing, what happened to you in the process is none of my concern. But you're right, Evelyn, why did I?" It was then that she noticed the empty glass in his hand, and the fact that that hand was poised above her face. "I suppose I've wasted my life on a bloody murderess, haven't I?" It would be a little cliche to say that he was probably drunk, as this was how these things usually happened, but as he brought the glass down on her - she had had mere moments to shield her face with her hands, but had managed it by the skin of her teeth - and she felt blood run down her wrist from a deep gash now in her hand, it occurred to her that he probably was. _

_Old instincts made her throw herself over the sofa, dig something from her bag and stand up again, but it wasn't until she noticed that she was holding her custom Q Branch gun - small and discreet, just like it's owner - in her shaking, bloody hands was she even conscious of what she was doing. She dropped it suddenly, her hand over her mouth as she gasped in shock. _

_He didn't speak. Just turned. And left._

* * *

M _sat on the closed lid of the toilet in her locked bathroom, holding a towel to the cut in her hand, staring at the crimson blood congealing on her white dress and sobbing. In the space of twenty minutes, she had considered suicide, resignation or simply going and begging to Matthew to come back, but none directly appealed to her. She just focused on stemming the blood flow from her hand. She was someone who knew where arteries were and what to do if one was broken, but fortunately it didn't look that bad, just a little messy, so she was just thinking 'let it bleed'. Though recently she had never passed a thought to her husband, it was now that she was realizing how much he had actually meant to her..._

_She heard someone knock on the bathroom door, got up and opened it to find David standing in front of her. "Are you okay?"_

_"I've been better," she sniffed, her youngest and only son pulling her into an embrace. _

_"No, I mean that cut on your hand. He wasn't worth it; he can't have been if he didn't see that what we do is done with the best interests. He came back, packed a load of stuff and then left. There's a note on the table for you."_

_"My hand's fine, David. Just leave me alone."_

_He took hold of her hand and removed the towel she was clutching to it, then sucked his teeth at the sheer size and depth of the cut. "That needs stitches, Mum. Look, I'm taking you to A&E."_

* * *

**Well? Your thoughts on this story would be much appreciated. More coming soon(ish)**


	2. Chapter 2

M felt tears nip at her eyes as she continued to stare into the old(ish) photograph, but she scrubbed at them with a balled fist furiously. Though she was still bitter and somewhat upset about being left without so much as a second thought, anguish had bubbled over into fury, and her thumb dug so hard into the glass of the frame that she felt it crack. There was absolutely no forgiveness in her, not for him or for herself; she felt like a complete idiot following her initial reaction the previous night. Dropping the picture and leaving the shattered remains over the floor, she let herself slump onto the sofa.

She glanced behind her at the mess she had just made, though by accident. Staring at the gauze taped over her hand, she noted that she would have to clean it up as soon as she could be bothered; she had had enough accidents with broken glass to last a lifetime following the previous night's disaster.

Against her will, David had driven her to A&E following the episode in the bathroom and just their luck had gotten caught up in late-night rush hour. Two hours caught in traffic, plus another one in a waiting room, a quick examination, x-rays, twelve stitches and another half-hour drive later and they had arrived back at M's home. At half three in the morning. Her cut hadn't been too major, but it was deep and as a result was still pretty painful – she had been given about seven types of painkillers and strict instructions to not work for the next week, which she was making a point of ignoring. The next day hadn't been fun as M had barely gotten three hours of sleep, and Tanner had paid the price for it.

After making the decision to procrastinate dealing with the resulting mess from the smashed photo even further, M slowly paced over to her drinks cabinet. As her hand shook, she felt the crystal decanter clink against her tumbler, and she turned her head, staring out the window. She was now thinking about the time when she had been recovering from injuries sustained on a mission and Matthew had gruffly told her to 'stop fishing for compliments and go to sleep'. David had been right, he wasn't worth it. She looked round again, realising that her best Macallan had now sloshed over the sides of the glass and onto both the table and floor whilst she hadn't been paying attention. The alcohol stung as it got into the gash on her palm.

Moments after she winced, noticing this, she heard a lock click somewhere from inside her bedroom. The shock made her elbow the glass right off the table. Bloody hell, why was she dropping stuff all the time?

Drawing her gun out of her bag and deciding that if it was Matthew daring to show his face again that she wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger, she made her way into the room, treading carefully around her shattered tumbler and the resulting puddle of Scotch.

* * *

M potentially got the fright of her life when she stepped into her room. Her gun hit the floor as her jaw dropped.

The light was on.

Window open.

Someone standing right bang splat in the centre of the room.

Her first impulse was to pick up her weapon again, thinking that the black-suited man standing in her room was a burglar. But she didn't. A half-smile crossed her lips as she admired both the ingenuity and cheek of him. She laughed a little, a kind of deep yet feminine, sexy chuckle.

"James bloody Bond."

* * *

**Ideas for what happens next? Should he get his ass handed to him? Should they do it? Both?!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello! Anybody miss me? The 00M part of this will start to come out here. Enjoy!**

**PS. This has been corrected now; my English teacher thought that the 'one equal temper of heroic hearts' thingy was Charge of the Light Brigade and I forgot to look it up. Thank you to TemporaMores for pointing this out. Though, I can't help but notice you've stopped reviewing (not hinting, just wondering what I need to do better/if you're still reading.)**

* * *

M's smile slowly curled down into a scowl when she noticed that Bond had a pair of her knickers in his hand. "Dare I ask?"  
"This isn't what it looks like," James raised an eyebrow in what could only be described as a 'come at me' manner, staring at M glaring in his direction. If looks could kill, then 007 would most certainly be a dead man.  
"I don't care what it looks like or what it is. Wait, weren't you supposed to be in Ecuador?" M leaned against the door frame, experimentally curling the fingers of her injured left hand and wincing a little.  
"When I return from a mission off-hand, not coming in here and getting on your nerves would be breaking tradition, would it not? Generally by now, I would be on the sofa with a bottle of Scotch waiting for your return, but you were in there crying or something, so I decided just to wait until you realized I was here."  
"I'm not even sure whether or not you're joking," M face-palmed, sighing at his impudent (though perfectly plausable) reasoning. "Look, 007, good to know you're back reasonably in one piece, but I'm not in the mood. You know the drill," M rolled her eyes as James swing his bottom half out the window, firmly gripping the drainpipe. "I have a door for a reason, you know!"  
"I know, but I'm choosing to ignore that reason completely."

* * *

_Evelyn,_

_Sorry that it ended the way it did, but that really is the only thing I'm sorry for. Yes, I do hate MI6 - once you know what you and your people do it's hard not to - but what I thought was love kind of made me half ignore it. But on looking back, I realize that when we met you were a little, attention-seeking whore that threw herself in the direction of every male that came within touching distance of you - emphasis on the little - and I'm sure that not an awful lot has changed since then save for your hair colour. Don't try and contradict. May I say; Tiago Rodriguez. James Bond. I'm sure there's more, but I can't remember specifics such as names.  
Where I am is none of your immediate concern, but my number is being changed. Don't come after me because I know you will. I don't care. I'm getting a divorce organised, and if I don't then this is the last you will hear from me.  
Regards,_

_Matthew._

M's hands tensed and she tore the letter in half as she read it. "You absolute self-righteous- JESUS! Bond!" She didn't have time to let the tears she felt well up and fall before she noticed the master spy behind her.  
"I don hope you weren't talking about me. Do you mind if I use the loo?"  
"You're just bloody taking the piss now. Ignore the idiotic pun and wipe that smirk off your face," she added, noticing the irony of what she had just said a tad too late. "What for?" In response, James shrugged off the brown leather jacket which he had been living in for the past month and a bit to reveal his bloodstained shirt and the haphazardly stitched wound in the upper area of his right arm. M grimaced, before walking up to him and squinting at the cut. "Bloody hell, who on _earth_ did these stitches?"  
"That would have been me with my left hand and one of those cheap sewing kits you get in hotel suites."  
"You idiot," M snorted.

_Okay, James, I am seriously questioning your common sense. Or rather lack of it. You come back from a three-month mission in need of medical attention, and where do you go? MI6? A hospital, like any half-sane person? No. My apartment, plainly for the benifit of pissing me off. Why?_

* * *

"Get off, that hurts!"  
"How old are you?" M raised a contemptuous eyebrow as she knelt by James, who was sitting on the lid of the toilet, attempting to deal with the wound in his arm. Attacking week-old stitches made of cotton sewing thread with nail scissors was never going to be awfully pleasant for either party, and as James fliched away from M, she noticed that the cut in her own hand had wrenched open and her hands were now caked in both of their blood. "What did this to you? If you don't mind me saying, this is absolutely disgusting."  
"It's not too much fun for me either. I'm actually not too sure. I think it might have been a sai, if not a machete."  
M pulled the skin around the six-inch gash in James's bicep taut and eventually burst the last stitch. "That's that sorted. I'll clean it out and dress it for you, but you're going to get that checked out tomorrow whether you like it or not."  
"Yes, mummy," James laughed. It was almost surprising how the feel of M's hands against his skin and the smell of her perfume in the air around him (albeit, he dared say it was expensive and he knew it was not exactly too appealing) was such a comfort. His eyes drifted around the room as M attacked the wound in his arm with an iodine-soaked cloth. Swallowing the indescribably mix of feelings and suspicions with regards to the bloodstained towel in the corner, he said tentatively; "Who's been murdered?"

M pulled away from him at that, tearing at the wrapper around a sterile roll of bandage with her teeth. She sighed. He noted the veil of sadness that crossed her ice-blue eyes. "Okay, James, confession time. Stay still and don't interrupt."

* * *

Anyone walking into the apartment would presumably assume that it belonged to a pair of angsty young lovers if the trail of discarded clothes leading into the bedroom was anything whatsoever to go on.

"And he even had the nerve to say that I had cheated on him with you," M slipped her head underneath James's chin as he gently traced the line of her left cheekbone with his thumb. "Okay, it turns out I'm not as immune to your seduction techniques as I thought I was." She turned over, allowing James to kiss his way up her back.

_Is this me just trying to forget M- no, I won't demean myself by using his name - _him_? Or is this really what I've been after all this time? I'll go for the latter. James, do your thing._

"May I ask," James pulled up for a while, M looking over her shoulder. "Why on earth do you have a verse of _Ulysses _tattooed between your shoulder blades?"  
"I honestly don't know," M laughed slightly, though her embarrassment regarding the black italics permanently etched into her upper back was impossible. "Matthew and I were married in New York, you see. I remember us both getting completely smashed the night of our wedding reception, then I woke up three days later in a hotel room on top of him, stinking like a liquor store, wearing absolutely nothing except his dress shirt and that being there. He was under me in his pants, my garter in his mouth and my name in magenta on his arse. I've been meaning to get the bloody thing removed for ages, but I've never found the time. I suppose if you and Vesper had ever gotten married, I expected that that was roughly how it would happen, just maybe somewhere like Monte Carlo."

James let the image of a younger M lying practically naked and hung over in a ritzy hotel suite play about happily in his mind whilst unconsciously reading the verse on her skin under his breath.  
"Though much is taken, much abides,  
And though we are not now that strength which,  
In old days moved earth and heaven,  
That which we are, we are,  
One equal temper of heroic hearts,  
Made weak by time and fate  
But strong in will,  
To strive, to seek, to find,  
But not to yield..."  
M laughed again. "You know that's what he used to do." Her tone was different now. Sadder and as if she was remembering something which she wanted badly to forget.  
"Well, he's an unfeeling bastard who was never worth someone as amazing as you. And I think it's sexy, no matter what you do."

She pressed her forehead against his and smiled. "You're right. I want you. Here. Now."

Pr


	4. Chapter 4

** I wanted to make this a sex scene, but chickened out. Coming up next; An unwanted encounter and James learning exactly what 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned' actually means.**

* * *

James had not long discovered M's slightly more submissive side - she certainly didn't have nearly as much of her usual savvy in bed - but he was about to see the third face of a certain Ms Evelyn Bonham-Carter.

It seemed that M had an acute sense of hearing; James picked this up when the pair of them had been lying entwined in an embrace, half-asleep and perfectly content, until M bolted up, seemingly wide awake at the sound of a key turning in a lock. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, pulling James's discarded shirt over herself in a botched attempt at self-preservation and nipping on her toes out of the room.

James followed her slowly, yanking M's silk duvet around his bottom half and leaving impressive upper body stark, though he didn't have to go past the living room to find out what it was exactly that had set M off. She was in the middle of the room, standing about eye-to-lower-lip with a somewhat taller man who looked if anything like an older version of Q; eyes like cold chips of green glass and and a once-black white fox tonsure. One hand was inside her shirt, and he could tell that she was armed, just not willing to show it.

"Okay, you decide that you can't stand the sight of me, then come back here, and god only knows why, because after that I'm almost annoyed that I didn't shoot you! And if the next thing you do is try and kiss me, I swear to god you're a dead man." M's voice was raised and James could tell that her eyes were overflowing with prominent fury.  
"No, I'm not. There's just photos and stuff here that I want."  
M's face screwed up into an irritated grimace. "Get out! I swear, you have to be the biggest waste of forty-three years I have ever come across!"  
"You threaten to shoot me once more, and I'm calling the police. And we've had this argument before, and I don't want to have it again, thank you!...Wait a minute...who the hell is that?" Matthew was glaring at James now, who M had already noticed was skirting at the edge of the room.  
"James," M said simply. "But still, Matthew, twenty-six!"  
"What?"  
"Twenty-six. You've had flings with that many girls over the years, and in my career the only time I would ever sleep with someone was seduction to get information."  
"But the second I leave, you're flinging yourself at...this!"  
"If James was the older one, it would be totally fine, I know what you're thinking. You really have been the biggest chauvinist prick I have ever met for just about all of your life!"  
Matthew was scowling now, leaning against the door and making to open it. Before he left. he couldn't resist the last opportunity to get her angry. "You silly little whore!"

At this, M stepped forward, opening the door before punching him in the face and knocking him out of the apartment. "I'd rather be his whore than your wife!"


End file.
